God is in the nuggets

Note from John: Before we get to the post, I’d like to welcome Chris Andoe to the blog. He’ll be writing here and on AMERICAblog Gay. I first met Chris back in 2000 when friends and I were running the boycott of Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s new TV show (we eventually won). I saw Chris at a protest in Chicago and he asked if we had anyone organizing St. Louis. I said no, so Chris volunteered, and did a bang up job. I’m happy to welcome him to the blog.

And fyi, would love to have more women bloggers on the blog, but it’s been tough finding them – am checking out two right now, but if you know of anyone – for the main or gay sites – please send them my way: john at americablog dot com. Thanks!

Sitting in their idling cars with the AC running, they waited their turn to take communion in the form of a typical American factory-farmed chicken breast laced with all the natural goodness of antibiotics, Benadryl, and arsenic (sorry, “organic” arsenic), then rolled in white flour, powdered sugar, butter, salt and deep fried.

In a culture that readily accepts highly-processed substances as “food,” it was only a matter of time before we found people going to the same trough to meet their other needs, from spirituality to political expression.

In a matter of days, we’ve seen the meteoric rise of a brand new symbol of moral righteousness: the greasy fast food bag. Long thought of as mere garbage, this former agent of death is now the exulted symbol of a desperate people’s moral compass (life imitates art). Politicians like Sarah Palin and Lindsey Graham proudly pose with it (oblivious to how gay their photo opps actually came off). I imagine Republicans will soon be signing pledges of loyalty to their chicken god.

The scenes were repulsive. Supposedly civilized people turning to the drive-through window for a super-sized order of malnutrition, warped spirituality, and bigoted political discourse. (Obesity and arteriosclerosis all being part of God’s plan, praise the Lord.)

Though not a God you or I might be familiar with. Rather, a cheap fast-faith God who shares their prejudices, along with free refills of hate and intolerance.

Chris Andoe
Chris Andoe is an author and seasoned activist. After meeting John Aravosis at a Chicago “StopDrLaura.com” protest in 2000, Chris was inspired to organize his own major demonstrations in St. Louis, which drew national attention. Since then, his activism has revolved around LGBT, affordable housing, and mass transit issues. In 2011 Andoe made headlines taking on the amorphous hacker group Anonymous for publishing nude photos of a Bay Area Rapid Transit spokesperson, saying “Puritanical shame-based tactics have no place in the capital of sexual liberation”, and he extensively covered San Francisco's jarring gentrification, from mass evictions to the nudity ban. Andoe was on the ground in Ferguson at the height of the unrest, recording events as they unfolded.
Always in the fray, Andoe’s been interviewed by NPR, CBS, and has been quoted from CNN to The St. Louis Post Dispatch.

We are in the battle of our lives

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